When and Why Out-of-Body Experiences Occur?
Balinte, Jubileo Antonio1 Balubar, Franklin John2 Baclili, Chandni3
mystyjaab12@gmail.com, ggkanor15@gmail.com, chandniacosta@gmail.com,
Badangayon, Yhen4 Balat, Maricel5 Balbin, Dana6 Lara, Alethea7
yhenviene17@gmail.com, maricelbandro@gmail.com, danawyeth@gmail.com pogithea09@gmail.com
University of the Cordilleras Senior High School
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Abstract
There are two primary aims of this study: 1. to investigate the occurrence of Out-of-Body-Experience whether the body is active or the consciousness is absent. 2. To ascertain the cause of OBE, as well as the mysteries in the neurological record. Data were gathered from 26 articles out of 70 which underwent the inclusion and the exclusion criteria. A holistic approach is utilized, integrating vestibular disorder, altered state of consciousness, unconscious, and physical activity topics to establish the occurrence of OBE, likewise, integrating temporoparietal junction(TPJ), angular gyrus, and anterior insular cortex aims to uncover the grounds to why OBE’s is being experienced. This study has shown that OBE’s is not limited to a person being inactive and is also evident in an individual that is engaged in a physical activity. Further analysis showed that OBE’s and Near-Death-Experiences occurs due to the stimulation of some brain parts. These parts include the TPJ, angular gyrus, anterior insular cortex.
Keywords. Astral Projection, Near death experiences (NDE), Temporoparietal Junction, Vestibular, Angular Gyrus, Anterior Insular Cortex.
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I. INTRODUCTION
Some characters in fictions have a superpower called “Astral Projection” or “Out-of-Body-Experience” — the ability to leave their physical body, travel about as a sort of ghost, and then return to their body (Skeptic, 2018). For instance, Doctor Strange from Marvel is a sorcerer who exerts magic to project his astral form to other places and mystical dimensions.
If such an ability really existed, you might think that it would be a special and unique gift. Surprisingly, however, it turns out that it’s quite usual in real life for people to feel that they have left their bodies. In about ten people at least one will experience this sensation at least once in their live (Skeptic, 2018). Some have an out-of-body experience only once. Some have several such experiences. A few people even learn to have out-of-body experiences anytime they choose. These people claim that their spirits travel easily, sometimes to other worlds.
Throughout history, people have been experiencing astral projection. Commonly called out-of-body experiences (OBEs), these are events in which one's consciousness actually seems to be separated from the physical body. These are often described by people who have near-death experiences (NDEs), people whose suffering from mental or medical disorders, or even normal healthy people during their sleep.
Until recently, they were kept secret by people who experienced OBEs led by fear of being deemed insane by society. This said ability is also been recorded on cultural backgrounds, intentionally being used by spiritual leaders like “shamans” to connect with a “greater being” or to achieve a higher level of consciousness.
The study of out-of-body experience is interesting and significant for at least three reasons. The first reason is that OBE’s are fairly common among the human population and seem to constitute a universal human feature, experience or potential. The second reason is that people learn more about the different components underlying the conscious experience of being an embodied self and expanding the interdisciplinary theory of self-consciousness.
OBEs function to support the folk-psychological belief in a soul, the common-sense dualist view of human beings (consisting of a body and soul) and consequently a particular notion of life after death (Craffert, 2015). Thirdly, in consciousness studies, OBE research contributes to unravel the mystery of the self, or at least, of bodily self-consciousness. The fourth reason is that in recent years strong claims have been made that neuroscientific studies have solved the riddle of OBEs. This research seeks to address the following questions: When does OBE manifest? And what regions of the brain are stimulated to give rise into OBE? Is it possible for OBE to take place when the body is active?
There has been little quantitative analysis of the articles depicting to the cause of the topic. The main purpose of this study is to develop an understanding to the accordance of OBE in some regions of the brain and to further analyze the correlation of the occurrence of OBE whether the body is active or not. Moreover, to expand the knowledge of the people regarding the topic to avoid misunderstanding.
II. METHODOLOGY
A. SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW
The systematic literature review is a method/process/protocol in which a body of literature is aggregated, reviewed and assessed while utilizing pre-specified and standardized technique (Strukelj, 2018). The systematic review should follow a clearly defined protocol or plan where the criteria is clearly stated before the review is conducted.In other words, to reduce bias, the rationale, the hypothesis, and the methods of data collection are prepared before the review and are used as a guide for performing the process. Just like it is for the traditional literature reviews, the goal is to identify, critically appraise, and summarize the existing evidence concerning a clearly defined problem. Systematic literature reviews allow us to examine conflicting and/or coincident findings, as well as to identify themes that require further investigation.
B. COLLECTION OF ARTICLES
Initially, every member of the group provided 10 articles which add up to a total of 70 articles. These articles are gathered from several research databases including Academic Search Premier, Google Scholar and Bielefeld Academic Search Engine. In addition, data are acquired from numerous journals which includes the following: Journal of Religion and Psychical Research, Brain: A Journal of Neurology, Journal of Death and Dying, Journal Devoted to the Study of Nervous System and Behavior, Journal Of Clinical Neuroscience, Journal Devoted to the Study of Nervous System and Behavior, Journal of Near-Death Studies, International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences, European Journal of Parapsychology, Australian Journal of Clinical & Experimental Hypnosis, American Journal of Psychotherapy, The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Journal of Scientific Exploration, Journal for Spiritual & Consciousness Studies, Cognitive Neuropsychiatry and Journal of Spirituality & Paranormal Studies. All of these journals are not included in the Beall’s List of Predatory Journal. The search terms used are “astral projection” and “out-of-body experiences”.
C. INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION CRITERIA
The researchers systematically classified if the articles acquired are relevant or not using an inclusion and exclusion criteria. The inclusion criteria states that an article is significant if it clearly identified when or why out-of-body experiences occur. Another criteria for inclusion is the method of the researcher/s on how they came with their findings and conclusion. Is it scientific, credible and/or significant? On the other hand, an article will be excluded if it only focuses in astral projection and its findings are unjustified and definite. The article will also be excluded if its content negates the existence of Astral Projection and/or OBE. After conducting the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the data arrived at a total of 26 articles.
D. CLASSIFICATION OF FINDINGS
For the findings and conclusion, the researchers classified the data gathered based on the situation when the out-of-body experience occurred. These situations includes the following: while having a physical activity, unconscious, suffering from a disorder and in an altered state of consciousness. The researchers also divided it based on the brain function involved that justifies the occurrence of out-of-body experience like the TPJ (temporoparietal Junction), Angular Gyrus and Anterior Insular Cortex. The effects of OBE on the senses and also its effects on the perception of the person experiencing the phenomena. Another classification of the findings is the Religious implications of the findings of the articles.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
A. WHEN DO OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCES OCCUR?
Out-of-body experience (OBE) have been documented in various situations. These instances include the following:
1. ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Olaf Blanke is a neurologist who focuses his studies on inducing OBE. He have performed various experiments on people to alter their state of consciousness. He have collaborated with different scientists and his studies have been documented by different researchers.
One study done by Blanke at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne in collaboration with another neurologist Ehrsson and his team, they required the volunteers to wear goggles that displays a video that is meant to made them see a version of their backs, as the researchers strokes their backs, they reported that they are somehow in the virtual body that is in front of them. This also made the volunteers experience “proprioceptive drift” towards the virtual body, they felt as if they were standing in the position of their virtual self (Science, vol.317, p 1096).
Ehrsson’s team also performed the same procedure only the volunteers are in a sitting position. And it created the illusion that as if they are outside their own bodies (Science, vol.317, p 1048).
Another experiment done lead by Blanke performed the same procedures only the volunteers are lying down. The researchers reported that they induced an out-of-body levitation. Though Blanke performed many experiments, he still haven't found a way to interpret his findings (Consciousness and Cognition,DOI:10.1016/j.concog.2008.11.003)
Blanke also collaborated with another researcher named Thomas Metzinger. Metzinger started his research on Out-of-Body Experience since he experienced it at the age of nineteen (19). Since then he read books pertaining Out-of-Body Experience and also tried to induce it by himself by experimenting on himself. Following the advice of New Age”astral travellers” like not drinking water at noon and sleeping with a salt in his cheek.
He even persuaded his anesthesiologist to alter his medications just to feel the effects of the drug ketamine, a drug famous for inducing OBE. But this methods only caused him negative side effects. He could not find ways to produce Out-of-Body experience on demand with the purpose to study the phenomena systematically. Through his years of research he thought that, these experiences (OBE) are too realistic to be just mere events. He wondered whether reality as experience it might just be a representation of the world, rather than the real world itself. Though he still needs to induce OBE within his demands to study it systematically (par.1-3).
With Blanke’s experiments and Metzinger’s wide knowledge on the phenomena combined they created another area of research called virtual embodiment. Together they continued to alter states of consciousness with the use of computer technology. A virtual reality system that was designed to induce OBE like episodes. A headset that contains a pair of screens, one for each eye. This headset produces the illusion of a 3D world. Inside the illusion he saw his own body in front of him being stroked at the back by Lenggenhager, a scientist. Metzinger could feel it but his body to which it was happening is situated in front of him. The feeling was strange as though he was drifting in space or being stretched between two bodies. He wanted to go inside his body before him, but couldn’t. As if though he was locked outside of himself. Though it was quite an out-of-body experience, it was a proof that, using computer technology, the self-model could easily be controlled (par. 5-6).
2. UNCONSCIOUS
Charles Tart (1967) explained that subjects can spend a good deal of time on the borderline of sleep. The subjects' two OBE’s occurred in conjunction with stage 1 dream state yet the subject sharply distinguishes his OBEs from dreams so the author hypothesize that his OBEs are a mixture of dreaming and something else.
And according to Eelke Bos (2016) during surgery, stimulation of subcortical white matter in the left TPJ repetitively induced OBE’s.
3. VESTIBULAR DISORDER
During the synchronous condition the patient reported a tingling sensation in his legs and lower back where his virtual body was departing from the physical body. During the asynchronous condition he felt as though he was standing and looking straight ahead at a body in front of him. Hence, the process was successful (Kaliuzhna et al., 2015, p. 12).
The data gathered show a significantly higher occurrence of OBE in patients with dizziness than in healthy participants (Lopez, 2018). Most of the patients experienced OBE only after they started having dizziness for the first time (Lopez, 2018). OBE in patients with dizziness were mostly related to peripheral vestibular disorders. The article also identify depersonalization-derealization, depression and anxiety as the main predictors of OBE in patients with dizziness, as well as a contribution of migraine.
4. PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
Alvarado (2016) stated that although most cases of OBE conform to a pattern where the patient is inactive, a minority takes place when the person is engaged in physical activity. Aside from the few recorded ones, he presented four new reported cases where out-of-body experience are observed. These reports includes a 33-year old woman working in a garden, a 53-year old woman walking with her dogs, a 63-year old married housewife walking down the street and a 48-year old married woman undergoing a regression therapy. They all reported a sight of separating from their physical body.
Zingrone (2010) also explained that OBEs occur more often when individuals are lying down. The rare cases of experiencing OBE may be the cause of the lack of sensory stimulation coupled with a reflective focus on experience may make it more likely that alternate body images become manifest (Pontius, 1984), first as a change in body perspective and image, and then as Out-of-Body Experience.
B. WHY DO OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCES OCCUR?
Out-of-body experiences are generated by stimulating different parts of the human brain (Hines, 2003). The following brain parts are involved and associated with the occurrence of OBE’s.
1. TPJ(TEMPOROPARIETAL JUNCTION)
TPJ is a sensitive crucial structure for the conscious experience of the normal self, mediating spatial unity of self and body, and also suggest that impaired processing or damage at the TPJ may lead to pathological selves such as Out-of-Body Experiences (Blanke et al., 2009).
Katsnelson, Alla (2005) also said that it was found that the temporoparietal junction in the brain, must be activated for patients to report an OBE.
Pathological sensations of position, movement and perceived completeness of one’s own body are frequently associated with an OBE or AS. Which includes vestibular sensations such as floating, flying, elevation and rotation, visual body‐part illusions (such as the illusory shortening, transformation or movement of an extremity) also including the experience of seeing one’s body only partially down on herself (Bos, 2016).
The TPJ processes touch and visual signals, balance and spatial information from the inner ear, and the proprioceptive sensations from joints, tendons and muscles that tell us where our body parts are in relation to one another. Its job is to meld these together to create a feeling of embodiment: a sense of where your body is, and where it ends and the rest of the world begins (Ananthaswamy, 2009). It is located in between the temporal lobe and the parietal lobe.
2. ANGULAR GYRUS
Neurologist Olaf Blanke with colleagues accidentally induced an OBE in a 43-year old woman suffering from epilepsy. The researchers placed electrodes on the surface of the brain then sent mild shocks to various points to stimulate them, in an attempt to locate the source of the seizure, including the right angular gyrus which is located roughly behind the right ear. The angular gyrus after being stimulated, the patient reported having the sensation of leaving her body and seeing her body lying on the bed.(par. 2)
The angular gyrus is also responsible for the implication of illusions such as the experience of phantom limb by amputees. Phantom limb is the feeling that you still have the part of your body even after being amputated.
The function of the angular gyrus includes the awareness of the body to space. It coordinates the informations from the eye and the informations coming from the somatosensory system. The somatosensory system is responsible for telling the brain where the body is in space.If this system was disrupted it causes the people to see themselves in places where they are not, in this case an out-of-body experience.(Weir,2003)
A brain researcher of the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Antonio Domasio stated that dissociation from one’s body could be the result of a failure integration of the angular gyrus and the adjacent vestibular system (a system in the brain that mediates “own-body perception).
(Science Now.9/19/2002, p3, par. 4)
3. ANTERIOR INSULAR CORTEX
Yu (2018) presented a case study based on a report of an out-of-body experience that occurred to a child with intractable epilepsy. It is found that these occurrence are due to the stimulation of the anterior insular cortex by intracranial electrodes. It is observed that the patient’s seizures disappeared after disabling multiple sites located at the left anterior insular cortex by using radiofrequency thermocoagulation. However, it is reported that OBE could not be reproduced when repeatedly stimulating these sites.
The angular insular cortex is the largest portion of the insular cortex which a portion of the cerebral cortex on both hemispheres of a mammalian brain.
C. Significance of Out-of-Body-Experience to senses and religion
1. AFFECTS SENSES
Through surveying of psychologically healthy people. Arnold (2012) pointed that people who have been reported to experience OBE have a harder time integrating sensory information and perceiving their body’s position. This weaker link to the body may make it easier to perceive the body as if from an outside perspective.
2. RELIGIOUS IMPLICATIONS
Religion regards man as body, soul, and spirit. In 1991, Haddow published a paper in which they described that the realm of the spiritual and the connected realm of altered states of consciousness is one of the most powerful force which shapes man's life and destiny and the study of near death experiences (NDE) and out-of-body experiences (OBE) builds a bridge between the realm of the living and the spiritual realm.
IV .CONCLUSION
The main goal of the current study was to determine the occurrence and the cause of OBE. The most obvious finding to emerge from this study is that it disagrees to the common notion that out-of-body experiences only happen when you’re asleep. The researchers exploration of spirit, its relation to the body and soul, and its relation to consciousness also suggests that OBEs are not limited to a person being in an inactive state such as sleeping, undergoing a surgery and in a state of consciousness. OBEs can also be induced through several situations even at active state of consciousness. Several reports also lead to the fact that it can be observed while you’re active or conscious like walking, running and gardening.
Several experiments have been conducted with the help of computer technology to see the relation of the brain functions and human perception with Out-of-Body experience. Experiments conducted like simulations suggest that humans’ state of consciousness can be altered making people have a feeling of out-of-body perceptions of themselves.
Based on the findings, it conforms that out-of-body experience is directly associated and can be induced through the stimulation of specific parts of the brain. Stimulation of this parts of the brain includes sending mild electrical shocks to the specific part of the brain. These brain parts are the following: the temporoparietal junction which is located in between the temporal lobe and the parietal lobe, the angular gyrus which located roughly behind the right ear, and the anterior insular cortex which is the larger part of the insular cortex located on the both hemispheres of the cerebral cortex.
However, the justification of the occurrence of out-of-body experiences are not limited to scientific explanations. The field of religion also provides an explanation regarding the possibility of us experiencing OBEs. They state that OBEs are being experienced by people who are at Near-Death-Experience, and they also state that it may be the bridge between the realms of the living and the spiritual realm.
RECOMMENDATION
Future research could comprise attempts to examine specific OBE features in the light of many other variables. For example, both psychological and physiological variables, as well as the chances surrounding the beginning of the experience, might effectively be investigated. It would be also compelling to compare experiences of individuals within different scope of OBE thus may yield observations relevant to our understanding of life and the moment of death.